History of dictatorship helps to explain debt problems of southern Europe

by John Hooper

The Guardian
May 9, 2010

They possess olive groves, citizens with year-round sun tans and much of the west's cultural heritage. But is there anything else, apart from rickety public accounts, that unites the southern European nations in the eye of the latest financial hurricane? And, if so, could it help explain the crisis?

Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece used to be referred to – half-jokingly, half-condescendingly – as "Club Med". Then, as their government deficits and/or public debt became ever more alarming in the crisis that followed the (first?) credit crunch, someone hit on the even more insulting "Pigs".

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